Building an Engaged Church

When we discover how our Creator God designed us and created us, it means that we begin to search for and discover how God has wired and gifted us.

Then we begin to find great pleasure in ministry and life because we are serving in ways that God has equipped us and planned for us.

We are free to minister from our own area of strength.

Your job is not to focus on what you don’t have or can’t do but rather with what you do have and can do.

It just might mean you have to be willing to use something God has given to you for your ministry and in your leadership role that you may have viewed as a weakness.

Or perhaps you are putting to use the very tools and talents for your ministry which have been criticized by others who have misunderstood them as strengths and gifts from God that make you effective in the ministry to which you are called.

1 Peter 4:10 we read, “Each of us should use whatever gift we received to serve others.”

God has created you with abilities, passions, dreams, and experiences that make you uniquely qualified to do what only you can do.

God has given you certain people to serve, to help, to love that only you can reach.

He has called you to preach or teach or lead worship …to work with children or visit those who are sick…to provide meals, to pray, to encourage…

Some of you have gifts of organization, are creative, or artistic…

God created some of you to be more disciplined than others or more relational, while he created others of you to be more focused and achievement oriented.

Whatever gifts and talents He has given you – and whatever ministry he has called you to – you have a responsibility to develop your strengths to honor Him and fulfill His call on your life.

How many of you have agreed to serve on a project or committee, or to help with something and later realized that for one reason or another, this just wasn’t for you?

All of us, from time to time, get asked to be a part of a project or a committee, or to help in an area within our church or community.

It is likely that we have all ended up being convinced to do something we really were not good at because we thought we should say, “Yes.”

But what could happen if we were doing the things that utilize our talents?

What could happen if everyone was excited about his/her role on the project, or committee, or in ministry?

What could happen if people in the church were engaged in using their own gifts to fulfill I Peter 4:10?

Focusing on your talents unleashes the full potential with which God created you and gifted you.

Your greatest talents don’t get utilized only during a big event – they are employed every day.

Your talents also influence how you grow spiritually, how you relate to God, and how you serve Him and others through your church.

“Dear, dear Corinthians, I can’t tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide-open, spacious life. We didn’t fence you in. The smallness you feel comes from within you. Your lives aren’t small, but you’re living them in a small way. I’m speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection. Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively!” 2 Corinthians 6:11-13, MSG